SIDE STREETS: Eagles flock to Quequechan Club reunion

The Quequechan Club, North Main Street, Thursday night. Inside the big room at the Q-Club, a dozen or so men mill around. They’re Eagle Scouts, guys who, as boys, received the highest rank achievable by a Boy Scout.

“A lot of skills,” is what Picard, a neurologist, says he got out of the Boy Scouts. “My one regret is I didn’t stay more involved.”

In Fall River, the name “Picard” conjures a French Canadian, background but Picard moved to Fall River from Germany in 1938.

“Sit down if you don’t mind me boring you with a long story,” he says.

“My father was born in Alsace in 1893,” Picard says. “In a little border town.”

Page 2 of 2 - The Alsace Lorraine region of France has belonged by turns to France and Germany according to the fortunes of war,. France lost the area to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. French name or not, Picard’s father was born a German.

“He served in the German Army,” Picard says. “After World War I, he couldn’t go home because the French had won, Alsace was part of France and, if you’d served in the German Army, they wouldn’t let you back in.”

Picard’s father, also a physician, moved the family to Germany where, in 1938, he decided it was time to leave.

“We were allowed to leave with all our personal possessions and my father’s professional equipment,” Picard says.

The family settled on Walnut Street in Fall River and Picard’s father began practicing medicine on Cherry Street.

“I came to this country not speaking a word of English,” he says.

It’s a story being repeated today, when boys who speak only Spanish or Hindi or Somali are working on their Eagles.

Marc Munroe Dion’s “Side Streets” column draws on his knowledge of the area and his affection for the city where he was born. It’s about people and places and history and the voice that comes only from one corner of southeastern Massachusetts.